High Salt for Selecting Transgenic Rice

Public concerns on the release of genetically modified crops containing antibiotic and herbicide resistance marker genes often limit the acceptance of transgenic crops for commercialization. It is therefore desirable to develop transgenic crops that do not rely on antibiotic and herbicide selection. To this end, scientists from Hebei Normal University in China and Cornell University developed a novel transgenic rice selection system based on the use of salt (sodium chloride) for selection and regeneration at the cell culture stage. Plasmids containing the salt resistance genes OsDREB2A and AtSOS1 were introduced to the rice plants. Overexpression of these genes in the model plant Arabidopsis has resulted to transgenic plants exhibiting increased tolerance to salt stress. Transgenic rice lines can be regenerated in a medium containing 200 mM of sodium chloride.

The use of the genes OsDREB2A and AtSOS1 accomplishes two goals at the same time: production of high salinity-tolerant rice lines and development of a selection system that does not use any antibiotic or herbicide resistance marker genes.

Read the full paper at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.plantsci.2008.01.017